Friday, September 11, 2009

Sept 10 - Back in the USA

We drove down the Columbia Valley through thick pine and fir woodlands toward the border. It felt very strange not to have my copy of MilePost open on my lap. How did we travel without it before? It has been a wonderful traveling companion and I miss it. We made a last stop at a Real Canadian Superstore to spend the $29 Canadian I had left in the “Canadian money” billfold. Got out of there with 60 cents left over, so I did pretty good.

We crossed the border at Eastgate and it was a breeze. We answered all the questions and the border agent waved us through. Immediately we noticed a change. Instead of sparsely populated woods, there were ranches with wide hay fields all mowed down and baled. And cars! They all of a sudden appeared in every direction and by the time we got to Sandpoint we were in traffic that just got denser as we approached Coeur d’Alene.

Lake Pend Oriele (pronounced Ponderay, which is what they named one of the towns.) We spent the night at an RV park west of the and instead of the sound of burbling creek or the lapping waves of a lake we were lulled to sleep by the sound of a steady stream of vehicles on the freeway. We aren’t out in the wilds of anywhere any more.